1. Field of the Invention
A connector apparatus connects the flat electrical conductors of a photovoltaic panel with a plurality of insulated electrical output conductors, respectively. An electrical circuit containing a plurality of diodes is connected between the flat conductors and the insulated output conductors. In order to dissipate the heat generated by these diodes, the diodes are mounted on a heat-conducting plate that transmits the heat toward the photovoltaic panel.
2. Description of Related Art
Electricity-generating photovoltaic or solar installations generally include at least one photovoltaic panel for generating electricity from the energy of the light from the sun. Here flexible, slightly-bendable flat conductors generally extend out of the photovoltaic panels, thereby making it possible to connect the photovoltaic panels with a multiple conductor line, leading for example to a home installation or to a first to electrical apparatuses, such as an inverter or the like.
The individual flexible flat conductors are generally manually engaged by means of single clamp contact or the like, which is relatively expensive. Then a connection housing, which generally contains a certain number of diodes, is placed over the electrically-engaged flat conductor. Since the dimensions of the connection housings generally have to be relatively small, the relatively strong heat generation of these diodes presents a relatively serious problem.
The present invention was developed to find a solution to this problem. Accordingly, the diodes associated with the electronic circuit of the system are connected either directly or via at least one or more components to the surface of the photovoltaic panel in such a way that at any rate a portion of the heat generated by the diodes during the operation is dissipated into the photovoltaic panel either directly or via the connecting components.
In this way it becomes possible in a simple way to go below even relatively low limit temperatures, because the photovoltaic panel itself is used as a cooling element that absorbs the thermal energy.